You Can Take My Breath Away
by corvusdraconis
Summary: [HG/SS]: QLFC Round 11: Severus Snape has never been good at admissions of emotion. Perhaps, it was having two of the world's greatest Legilimens as masters that did it. Time is running out, however, for him to untie his tongue and stop tripping over his social feet, or the one he cares for will walk away, perhaps never to return.


QLFC: Round 11: Hero by Enrique Inglesias

 **Position of BEATER 1**

 **Lyric prompt:** You can take my breath away.

 **Regular prompts:**

(Quote) 'Women are made to be loved, not understood.' - Oscar Wilde

(opening sentence) 'Everything was going wrong.'

(word) blink

 **Beta Love:** fluffpanda, who survived a con and didn't grow a second or third head due to stress. Score!

 **Space-deleter & guy who keeps trying to Americanise my grammar and spelling *shakes fist* : **Serpentine13

 **Wrangler of iPads and odd sentence order:** Story Please

 **A/N:** For those of you following One Step, the next chapter is in the works and is currently at 10k (and I'm still writing, so I haven't neglected you, I swear!) Summer has been far more merciless for time than I had hoped, which just made writing horrible, especially for One Step, which requires an exceeding amount of fluffiness (in my head) to get written. Getting out the short QLFC pieces, which are only 900-3000 words tops is easy in comparison. Hang in there with me! (phew!)

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-

 **You Can Take My Breath Away**

Everything was going wrong.

Severus Snape had become the master of "going wrong." He was well practised in the ways of making the wrong choices and choosing the wrong path. He had sided with the wrong faction in his youth. He usually came off the wrong way in any conversation and used rancor instead of honey as his weapon of choice. He had picked the wrong dreams to chase, chosen the wrong words to say at the wrong time, sided with the wrong friends, and had been born into the "wrong" family, followed by other countless situations that had made him reviled instead of revered. He had also wrongly believed that Lily had been the singular brightest spot in his life that would never be outshadowed. It was one more mistake in a long list of mistakes in his life.

" _I see no difference."_

He had hurt her. There was a time, when she had been a student, that he could have justified it as being part of a charade he had to keep up. He could have convinced himself that being kind was impossible when being watched by so many Death Eaters' children, but it would have been a lie.

Horace Slughorn, as much as he loathed to admit it, had always managed to be the quintessential Slytherin without being a hard-arsed git of the dungeons. It was well known that Slughorn had his faults, and truly there wasn't a single professor of Hogwarts who didn't do something the students complained about, but the Dark Lord had wanted Horace on his side as much as a man of his type ever wanted anyone. The difference had been Horace had known a horrible choice when he saw it coming, and he had fled rather than be forced into a decision that would undoubtedly end badly.

" _Don't assume that because we have been forced to be colleagues for the past decade that you know me, Professor Granger."_

It was a lie. It was a ruse. She knew him better than anyone ever had. She brought him his morning coffee daily with cream and one sugar cube, just the way he liked it. He scoffed at her, belabouring the point that he preferred tea. It hadn't been a blatant lie. They both preferred tea, but in the morning they both required coffee to function beyond a point, grunt, growl, and scowling demeanour.

Sometimes, they would face off against each other in the corridors. They would stare at each other—she with her perfectly learned scowl and he with his disdainful look he had perfected over decades of practice. He swore to himself that she had learned how to scowl because of him, even though the popular opinion was that her falling out with the Ministry of Magic had put the oh-so-familiar withering expression, one that would have made Minerva proud, on her face. Others said that it was her falling out with Ronald Weasley, fellow hero of the Second Wizarding War, that had chased the light from her eyes and tempered her warm smile with bitterness.

Hermione had dismissed it as hogwash.

"Ronald and I simply realised we weren't meant to be together as a couple." she had scoffed. "Honestly, this school makes up my history as badly as Rita Skeeter and her tainted quill."

Hermione Granger, however, didn't _presume_ to know him. She _did_ know him. Somehow, after seeing him bleed out in front of her, she had made that fateful decision to leave Harry Potter's side just in time to Apparate herself and her ex-professor to St. Mungo's. A team of Healers had descended upon him like locusts on a field of crops. Somehow, she had Apparated them both while applying pressure to his wounds and forcing air into his lungs the Muggle way. The healers had told him that she had saved his life, and she hadn't once brought it up to him. He knew it, however.

There was a life debt between them. He couldn't help but feel the familiar tug of energy that pushed him towards her. It was the same debt he had begrudgingly owed James Potter for saving his life from Remus Lupin on the night of a full moon all those years ago. And, like the same fool he had been back then, he had allowed his bitterness at being "forced" into something to cloud his judgement and taint his view of Hermione's genuine compassion for all life—even a life as bitter and foul-tempered as his.

She knew, for example, that when he started roaming the corridors late at night that the only thing that could cure his insomnia was a steak bake from Greggs. He swore that she kept a stash of them with the house elves just for placating him, but, just as he never knew how she knew he was craving them, he never knew how she could always procure one for him regardless of hour or day. She knew that despite all the wonderful custom blends of tea he made himself that he preferred Earl Grey like a "proper British person" only with a dash of extra bergamot tossed in. Somehow, she always knew when he _needed_ his Earl Grey. There were times when she would show up at the doors to his chambers with a margarita pizza or a pizza with beef and onions. Somehow, she always knew exactly what he was craving before he did.

She was infuriatingly accurate.

He swore she didn't know him.

It was a lie.

He couldn't understand her. It made no sense to him why Granger would even give him the time of day after all he had done to her as a child. Even now that she was his peer in every sense of the term, taking up mastery of both Transfiguration and Arithmancy as her specialties, she boggled his mind.

After listening to Severus go off on a tirade after a staff meeting, Minerva had once quoted Oscar Wilde and said " _woman are meant to be loved, not understood._ " Her love for the old Irish poet and playwright was well known. It was a little known fact that the man was a wizard on top of his artistic accomplishments. He had chosen the art of words over artistry of magic, but Minerva had argued that the wizard had just exchanged one type of magic for another. Severus Snape was convinced that the only artistry he was personally capable of was snark.

They had enjoyed a quiet evening reading by the fire with hardly a word being said between them. It was in that comfortable silence that she had spoken.

"I enjoy these evenings together with you, Severus." she had said as she gazed into the fire with a peaceful expression. "I will confess that a part of me wishes you could admit to at least enjoying my company as well."

You can take my breath away, he wanted to say, but he never did.

Words failed him. Thinking failed him. Emotional control failed him. He fell back on the only thing that hadn't failed him in all the years he had been alive: acerbity.

"For Merlin's sake, Professor Granger." he had snapped. "I am nineteen years your senior. How could you possibly think I'd be interested in you?"

When he had stared at her, she hadn't even blinked at him. She gave no tell-tale sign, no blink, sound, or even a twitch of facial expression. She had finished her tea, like she always did. She had washed out her cup by hand and set it back on his shelf with the rest of his tea service, and then she had quietly left his chambers without a word.

She had left without her customary goodnight.

Every bone in his body screamed at him and called him quite a few choice names. He slammed his palm into his forehead as he let out a soft moan of despair. Why did he always do that? Why did he have to say things that forced him spiraling backwards to his teenage years when his bad choices had caused his one childhood friend to finally throw in the towel? For almost ten years he and Professor Granger had enjoyed a habitual dynamic of snark and batinage. In all that time, she had never taken his rancor to heart. She had shaken her head at his insults, mock disgust, and irritability. In the same breath of his insults to the stupidity of the dunderheads in his classroom, she would hand him his tea as she walked by, her hand briefly alighting on his in passing.

Her hand had always been warm, just like her eyes.

And every time he saw the liquid fire dance across her eyes as she gazed upon him, his breath caught in his throat and refused to come or go. He had bottled it up, concealed his response behind years of Occlumency, and denied it as failing human hormones rather than be something real.

Days turned into agonising weeks as the familiar knock on his door never came. His tea or coffee would be waiting for him as always, but unlike so many times before, Professor Granger was not there to share in the early morning grunting that had become so reassuringly normal. His insomnia, which had been eased since Hermione had taken it upon herself to ensure he was fed properly, returned with a vengeance. Staff meetings came and went, but when they were done, the bushy-haired witch no longer lingered to accompany him on his walk down to his classroom or the Great Hall.

"Hermione! Congratulations!" Professor Longbottom gave Hermione a hug in the entryway to the Great Hall. "Minerva told me the news! I heard your grant for working on treatments for bringing back Animagi stuck in their animal forms or half-forms went through! Will you be taking sabbatical from Hogwarts to do your work for a few years?"

Severus' chest seized as he heard the conversation. Pain spread through his chest as clearly as heart pains. She was leaving. Of course she was leaving. She had nothing tying her to Hogwarts when more important work beckoned. Minerva had been encouraging her to branch out for years, telling her Hogwarts would always be there for her to come back to. Hermione was a well known and well-regarded Master of both Transfiguration and Arithmancy. She had spoken as a guest lecturer in schools across the world for her insight in both.

Her being at Hogwarts had been, as far as he knew, a personal choice rather than a lack of options. Her tenure at Hogwarts was cemented into the very stone foundation of Hogwarts. The school practically purred when she walked through the halls. Severus could sense the walls hum with magical resonance as she passed, almost as if it knew who it wanted as a future Headmistress without exception. The staircases were always where she needed them. She could walk down an utterly random hallway and still show up where she needed to be in seconds. Students thought she was a spectre. Others thought she had taken lessons from the house-elves and learned to Apparate within the walls of Hogwarts. Minerva thought it amusing. She'd pat the walls of Hogwarts with fondness, stating: "Hogwarts knows how to treat her well and let her go. That way, she'll always return home."

"Poppycock," Hermione had scoffed. "I do not Apparate within Hogwarts."

"I bet you could, dear." Minerva had replied with a smile on her face. "Hogwarts would let you."

"Psh!" Hermione clucked her tongue.

Proof had come from Hogwarts itself. One of the Governors had come in and demanded that Hermione detail her curriculum for Transfiguration and the advanced classes she had taken over for Septima Vector in Arithmancy. Word had apparently spread to other schools of her success. Other institutions were attempting to lure her off to teach for them full time, citing that she wasn't being paid enough for her position at Hogwarts.

Board Director, Alec McGillicutty, had either the bravery or stupidity to voice his opinion that Hermione was doing her job like any professor and didn't deserve any better pay as she was one of the younger and less senior professor on staff, war heroine or no war heroine.

Severus could have throttled him. It was obvious that Hermione stayed because she wanted to be there, not because she was making a stellar salary. Her traveling lectures had actually supplemented her income quite nicely and allowed her to go to other institutions and see how they were teaching Transfiguration and Arithmancy.

There were those like Septima and Minerva that wholeheartedly agreed that Hermione deserved a little extra pay for what she did. She was teaching both Transfiguration and Arithmancy, after all, when most professors were just fine with one class under their belt.

Alec McGillicutty found himself trapped in Hogwarts for about a month. The castle ran him around in circles in unknown corridors until he ended back up in the same room for weeks. No one ever heard him screaming. No magic would work for him. He had apparently failed at the Patronus lesson in DADA, and no owl of Hogwarts came to his call. No house-elf would come to his aid. Food had magically appeared, though, enough for him to not die of starvation, but he had become stuck as a prisoner in the ever-changing halls of Hogwarts.

By the time he had "magically" appeared in the middle of the Great Hall, half-naked and sporting singed eyebrows, cobwebs in his hair, and what looked like a tapestry of trolls in tutus covering his head, Alec McGillicutty signed the paperwork to give Hermione Granger tenure that same day and personally signed off on papers that allowed her to move out of the closet hole they had given her as a quarters into a full chambres like the senior staff. He refused to do anything else until the ink was dry.

Hermione had just stared, unblinking, as the wizard had thrust the scroll with the official seals on it into her hands, muttering some sort of apology, and wrapped the tapestry around himself as he stormed out of Hogwarts.

Severus swore he heard the house-elves giggling from within the walls of Hogwarts. The corridors themselves seemed to chuckle as the disheveled wizard left. To this day, if Minerva needed anything that needed a signature from the board, she gave it to Hermione. Hermione would always return with not only a signature, but usually an additional purchase order for whatever new books they needed for the library. Even Madam Irma Pince respected Hermione for that feat alone.

Severus should have known better. He couldn't even walk down the hallway without having random debris fall on him, stairways move before he could step on them, or the Hogwarts owls randomly take a dump on him as they flew by. The very school was punishing him for being a git.

In fact, the only one in Hogwarts that couldn't seem to treat Hermione with the respect she deserved was Severus. She had never asked him to change, but until this very moment in time, Severus had never felt so socially inept. He could dress down a student without breaking a sweat while drinking coffee and reading the Daily Prophet at the same time. When it came down to one bushy-haired witch, he couldn't manage a kind word.

As he watched Hermione excuse herself from Neville and head out to walk across the grounds, perhaps to go tell Hagrid the news, Severus knew he had to say something. He had to break the stammering, blithering, silence that choked him up whenever he thought of Hermione leaving to set up her therapy program somewhere and find out she never wanted to leave.

Severus swallowed his pride and hurried after her, his black robes billowing behind him as students scattered to get out of his way. "Professor Granger."

She kept walking.

Severus felt his chest seize. _Please, don't let it be like Lily. Merlin. Please don't let it happen again._

"Professor Granger!" he called to her back, hurrying up behind her. Then, he realised something he had not done in all the years he'd known her. "Hermione," he pleaded, using her name for the first time.

The witch halted, seemingly frozen in stunned silence. She turned around slowly.

"I'm sorry!" he breathed, wincing as he thought of how well his apology had gone with another Gryffindor witch so long ago. "Please, don't go."

Hermione's eyes were unreadable. "Why?"

The word might as well been a dagger through his heart. "I," he trailed off, turning his head to the side, "I need you. I cannot," he said as he closed his eyes and sucked in his breath, "I cannot imagine my life without you."

He opened his eyes to see her honey brown eyes staring deeply into his. Her fingertips touched his lips as she allowed her disbelief to show. He could take it no longer, and he did what was probably the third most impulsive thing he'd ever done in his life. He leaned down and pressed his lips to hers as his arms crushed her against him.

As he they pulled apart in what could have been hours later, breathless, Hermione looked up at him serenely. "Why didn't you just say so, Severus?"

Severus was caught up in her eyes, unable to speak or breathe as she placed her hand on his cheek.

"You're forgiven, Severus. You stubborn, irascible git."

Suddenly, flower petals were falling from the parapets of Hogwarts, showering down upon them from above.

Decades later, when "Uncle" Harry and "Auntie" Minerva explained to the Snape children how their parents had finally been brought together, the answer was always the same: Hogwarts.

- _Fin-_


End file.
